Does civilian blood carry less weight than that of the armed forces personnel and government officials?
Decision makers in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan seem to forget a clear verdict of God where it clearly says in the holy book, “Verily, never will God change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls).” It is very clear that none else but the people themselves can change their condition by taking action. When nations find themselves in precarious conditions, only collective wisdom and right actions in the right direction can bring them out of trouble.
After the 16/12 Peshawar massacre, a National Action Plan (NAP) — after the Shikarpur incident it can effectively be termed an inaction plan — was chalked out with the consensus of the political and military leaderships of the country. The tragedy of 16/12 received the unprecedented attention of the people from all spheres of life, the civil and military leaderships and the mainstream national media, probably for three basic reasons: a) the brutality of the terrorists touched new heights in this planned attack on innocent children, b) the number of child fatalities and c) most importantly, the victims belonged to an army-run school.
One and a half months later, due to our inaction and lip service only, more carnage took place in a Shia mosque in Shikarpur, Sindh, during Friday prayers resulting in 74 casualties and dozens of critical injuries. But this time around, very few sane voices were heard talking about the suicide bombing with the same intensity as was used for the 16/12 APS attack. The main reasons probably were: a) the incident took place in a poverty-ridden rural area of Sindh, b) the victims belonged to an already marginalised sect, the Shias, and c) the mosque where the unfortunate incident took place was not administered by the armed forces of Pakistan.
In the Shikarpur carnage, we did not witness a hue and cry like was seen in the APS incident, there was no all parties conference, no solidarity vigils by civil society and no high ups from the federal government or the armed forces visited the aggrieved families. Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif was on an official visit to Karachi when the incident took place but the murder in cold blood of 73 innocents during Friday prayers could not move him to visit the affected families bathed in blood just a few hundred miles away. Rather, it took our honourable PM hours to open his sealed lips on the heinous crime, probably after resolving more important feast-related issues during his visit to Karachi. Our dilemma is that we as a nation not only believe in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ terrorists but also in privileged and less privileged victims of terrorism, having various standards when it comes to oppression and tyranny.
The execution of terrorist convicts was the first point of the 20-point NAP. In the aftermath of 16/12, Pakistan initially announced the execution of 500 terrorist convicts. Nineteen terrorist convicts have been hanged thus far, after which executions have been halted for some unknown reason.
On December 20, 2014, Aqeel (alias Usman), a former soldier of the army’s medical corps, was executed for an attack on the headquarters of the Pakistan army in 2009 in Rawalpindi. On the same day, Arshad Mehmood was executed for an assassination attempt on the former military ruler, General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf. On December 22, four men were hanged in the district jail in Faisalabad. All four militants were convicted because of their involvement in an attack on former president Pervez Musharraf. On December 31, a former Pakistan air force junior technician, who was also convicted in the Pervez Musharraf assassination attempt case, was executed at the Peshawar central prison. On January 7, 2015, in Multan, two convicted terrorists were executed. One of them had killed six police officials including a Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP). On January 13, seven condemned prisoners were executed in Karachi, Sukkur, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi. All seven had either killed or tried to kill army, government or police officials. On January 15, two more condemned prisoners were hanged at Karachi Central Jail and Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore, respectively. One of them was found guilty for shooting a retired DSP and his son. On January 17, a terrorist convict was executed in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
The aforementioned facts and figures did not leave much to write home about. Bravo to the civil and military leaderships of Pakistan for settling the score with the terrorists as all the executed terrorists were either involved in attacking military personnel and installations or killing police and other government officials. May I dare ask the PM, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Shairf and the Director General ISI Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar when the families of more than 50,000 innocent civilian martyrs will get justice? Does civilian blood carry less weight than that of the armed forces personnel and government officials? When will the killers of their loved ones be executed?
The second most important point concerning NAP is the setting up of special trial courts. The military courts have been set up but the process of cases referral to the concerned military court is seemingly taking too much time. This makes the whole process pathetically slow and kills the basic objective of speedy justice through military courts. Secondly, if the already convicted terrorists are not being executed, then what is the logic behind setting up military courts?
Revamping and reforming the criminal justice system is one of the most important points of NAP. The establishment of military courts is not an ultimate and long-lasting solution to our miseries but an ad hoc one. No society can exist without delivering speedy justice to the people at their doorstep. Unfortunately, two months have gone by since the 16/12 incident but no seriousness is shown on the part of the government to bring about significant and visible reforms to our criminal justice system. This needs to be done as a top priority without wasting any more time.
The government announced the execution of 500 terrorist convicts but executed 19 only in two months, proscribed 60 organisations but effectively barred none, vowed to contain extremist outfits but allowed them to hold rallies and threaten civil society, planned countering hate speech and extremism but allowed extremists to publish their newspapers and magazines and claims to deal firmly with sectarian terrorists and to register and properly regulate madrassas (seminaries) but takes no action on the ground. Other than forming a bunch of committees and holding a series of bureaucratic meetings, the government’s seriousness about the rest of NAP’s points is more or less the same as mentioned above. What kind of implementation is this of NAP? The people of Pakistan have every right to ask the civil and military leadership if this is a national action plan or national inaction plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment